Ignorant Beach

November 29, 2008

By Mike M., fairfield, CT

Image Credit: Ashley B., Potomac, MD

My family and me were chilling at a Cape Cod beach at The Waters Edge. It was sunny blasting heat and low tides. I gaze out and notice that their seemed to be a cluster of rocks. There were some people grouping around it. “Hey Ryan, want to go see what those people are looking at”? “Sure” he chuckled. As we wade over to see what is going on we see the rocks were actually oyster farms. So we then stared at the oyster farm and picked up some oysters. No one stops us or says we are doing anything wrong. We play in the sand dunes and the water. The sun is retreating lower and lower over the water. It has been a spectacular day. As we leave my brother notes, “lets get some oysters for dinner”? I agree, but at the time we didn’t know it would be steeling. My brother and I headed over and approached a nice big bucket full of oysters. Ryan starts whisking the oysters into his pockets. After 3 oysters, I realized this was steeling. I nervously implied to my brother “Ryan, this is stealing”. “It is okay Michael, everything will be fine”, he soothed.

I noticed the man that took care of the Oyster farm was strolling over to us with anger in his eyes, as he reaches us, he roars at us, it hurts as if his breathe is fire! Everyone is around watching. My brother is being attacked of a myriad of painful words. I am scared do I run or do I stay? I feel adrenaline running down my spine. I want to run far away, but I don’t. I stay where I am, with my brother. Not because I want to, I am frozen. The man was screaming at my broken brother about being a thief and that he should report him to the police.

We head back to the beach in complete silence. As our feet hit the sand my brother is drowning his own tears. I feel guilt but he could have prevented it if he had listened to me. Before that I used to never look before I leapt. Now after that I have never done something without knowing about what I am doing. My family thinks I am sort a afraid of everything, but I won’t be the one getting in trouble.

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